


long live the queen

by mswyrr



Series: Post-S1 D/s-Verse [2]
Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: D/s, F/M, Femdom, Fingerfucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:18:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8257393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mswyrr/pseuds/mswyrr
Summary: Snapshot of their relationship, four months in.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to shinykari for her gorgeous Shades/Mariah fic ["That which has drowned them has given me fire,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8181799?view_adult=true) which inspired me to further explore the subby sex appeal of bruised knuckles.

After they put Pete in the ground, Mama Mabel found new lovers. It took her time to hit her stride, but as the months and years passed she always had some fresh young thing hanging around her. One of her new girls, picked out to be special. Or one of her street thugs. Mariah would notice on her visits home from college and law school, roll her eyes at it.

She thought it was disgusting. A woman that old jumping the bones of twenty-year-olds.  

But Mama Mabel was paying her tuition. Putting clothes on her back, food in her stomach, and a roof over her head. So Mariah kept her mouth shut. Besides, it wasn’t like with Pete. None of them got above themselves without being put down hard.

Mariah watched Shades pull his clothes on. Warm and deliciously sore from the thorough fucking he’d given her – done exactly how she ordered it. It was late, but there was business to attend to. People to talk to. Heads to crack, maybe worse. She didn’t want to know. He got his work done right so she never needed specifics.

But she couldn’t help thinking, as she watched the slide of muscle as he pulled his shirt on: Mama Mabel would laugh her ass off.

Mariah wasn’t the same as her, no: she was _worse_. She’d fallen for her hot young thing.

Like a damn fool.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said. He did his job and she did hers. There was no changing it. But there was always the chance that one night he wouldn’t come back, so she liked to say something. Something nice, just in case. And if she tried to tell him to be safe, he’d probably take it as an insult to his skills.

He glanced back at her with a look so warm and sweet she wanted to drag him back to bed. “Yes, you will,” he said. “Goodnight, Mariah.” He closed the door quietly on the way out.

He was like that with her. Her house, her business, her body. Treated her with respect. Over the past few months, she kept giving him things. Space in her life, influence in her business, sex. Waiting for the inevitable insult. For him to try to take her for granted. Even nurtured some pleasurable fantasies of putting him in the ground if he _ever_ … but he didn’t.

She moved him into her house. After living alone so long, she thought she might not last a week with someone in her space. But he was the most scrupulous guest she’d ever had: neat, quiet, never in the way. At first, he spent almost all his time in her home upstairs in the room she’d given him. She had to be the one to draw him out, show him where he belonged.

She liked that.

She invited him to her weekly meetings with Alex to see if he’d try to bully either of them or reveal some side of himself she didn’t notice when they were alone together. But he didn’t do any of that. Sipped coffee and spent more time listening than talking. And when he chose to speak he always had something to say that was worth hearing.

Sometimes she’d find out days or weeks later that he’d handled a problem for her without even bothering her about it. Just handled it. And the kinky shit…

Mariah buried her face in the pillow and smiled. The kinky shit made her feel like a queen. Delight thrilling through her each time she pushed and he gave himself to her with open hands. Delight and deeper, possessive things that were just as satisfying.

Being a fool wasn’t so bad. Not if she was smart about it. Let Mama Mabel laugh; she was in hell and Mariah was here on earth, ruling Harlem.

-

 

People wanted to kill her. Not a lot, but enough. More than zero was more than enough.

It didn’t sink in for a while – sure, she had known during her time working with Diamondback that the man was a psychopath. Death was possible. Likely, even. But he called her out for not _acting_ like it, even then.

She was used to politics, where murder wasn’t a regular part of play.

The time around Diamondback itself was like a fever dream. Once it was over, she knew intellectually that there would be those who’d come for her, but didn’t really feel it. She discovered that part of that was Shades putting out fires before they ever got to her.

She found out on Wednesday that someone had tried to break into her private office with a gun on Tuesday night. She overheard the men talking about the fun they’d had watching Shades beat the man to death.

It made her feel vulnerable. Caught off guard. Angry.

She waited to address it, though. Let the day pass, the customers and employees filter out. Then she poured herself a drink and called Shades to her office. “I heard there was an incident,” she said when he came in. “ _Overheard_.”

She shouldn’t have to learn these things from eavesdropping on her own employees.

 “I took care of it,” he said, no change in his expression. He had his glasses on, which made it harder to read him.

“Yes, “ she said, “I _heard_. Why didn’t you tell me what happened?”

“There was nothing to tell,” he said. “I took care of it.”

Mariah stood, coming around the desk. She leaned back against it and crossed her arms, looked hard at him. “How many people want to kill me?”

He lifted his chin. “None that will get through me,” he said, like a promise, flexing his gloved hands at his sides. The hands that had killed that man.

Ah. She’d finally found a spot where his male ego rubbed her the wrong way: protecting “his girl.” Not just keeping her safe, which she cherished. No, keeping her in the _dark_ about it. Because he was the big, strong man. Didn’t want the little woman to worry her head. It was one of the most positive ways to be a macho idiot. Almost sweet.

 _Almost_.

“I want to know the next time one gets close,” she said.

It wasn’t a request.

The proud tilt of his shoulders sagged. “I can keep you safe,” he said, confusion in his voice. He didn’t get it. Maybe he expected her to drop her panties for her shining knight. Tell him how big and strong he was.

“You can do your part –“ she said, willing to be generous here, “I appreciate that. But my life is mine, Shades. Knowledge is how I keep _myself_ safe. How I feel safe. You don’t have the right to keep that from me.” She’d only ever been able to rely on herself in the end. Being protected felt good. Of course it did. The way he cared about her made her bones turn to jelly and her heart race. But she could not and would not put her wellbeing entirely in anyone’s hands.

She was his girl—in the weird way that worked between them—but she couldn’t be _that_ girl. In the dark and happy about it. Never worrying her pretty little head.

He pulled off his glasses, looking upset. “Mariah, I wasn’t—“

Mariah held up a hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were following the pattern we have agreed on for everything else. You didn’t know this was different. But now you do.” She took a drink of whiskey, let it burn down. “I’m not angry,” she said, “this time.” Let that hang in the air.

He got the message. “There won’t be a next time,” he said.

“Good. Now—“ she set the glass down, “come over here and show me your hands.”

A smirk played at his mouth as he walked over, removed his black leather gloves slowly. A little strip tease.

His hands looked bad: bruises and abrasions across the knuckles. A little swelling, though a day had passed and he must have iced them.

It said that he hadn’t been thinking, that he’d just gone off on the man who tried to come here and hurt her. That should probably bother her. Instead, it made heat spread out from her belly to her thighs.

Mariah took his hand in hers, looked it over. “That has to hurt,” she said. Then she drew his hand down and, working her skirt up with her other hand, put it right where she wanted it. Rocked against him and watched him smile.

He cupped her with his palm through her panties, thumb rubbing just above her clit. “So you do like it,” he said, so pleased with himself it was almost absurd. “Me protecting you.”

Mariah rested her arms over his shoulders. He wasn’t the biggest man she’d been with, but there was a hard, coiled strength in him that made her feel like she had something dangerous, not quite tame between her legs. She pushed her herself against his hand. “I’d _like_ it if you stopped slapping yourself on the back and got to work,” she said.

He chuckled and pushed her panties aside, slipping a finger in slow and easy. He bent forward to kiss her throat, making her skin tingle from his lips, the rough scrape of his stubble. Pushed another finger in, again nice and easy. That was her baby. But she was so wet and she wanted them both really feeling it.

“Give me more,” she said.

He obeyed, working another finger inside her, curling them just so. Stretching her. Big, violent hands, calloused and rough, but set to her purpose. To pleasing her. The hot yearning inside her got deeper, hungrier. She braced herself against his shoulders and fucked his hand.

With his injuries, it had to hurt.

She liked that.

She closed her eyes and rode him, using her hands on his shoulders for leverage. Gloried in her own slick hotness against the stretch of his fingers. He sucked at her neck and worked his thumb against her as she came, clenching around his hand and digging her fingers into his shoulders.

When she was done she put her arms around his taut little waist, hugging him close in the afterglow. A swirl of mellow and possessive feelings in her chest. Over the past four months, his body had become her safe place. He made it clear every day that he belonged to her – all that strength, always for her, never against her. And his warm heart, loving her like no one ever had. Loving every part of her without flinching or bullying.

Sensing the change in her emotions, he kissed her forehead. “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he said, quietly.

Mariah pulled him down, kissed his lips.

Then she glanced at her watch and leaned back, pushing her skirt down. “I have to finish up here,” she said.

Shades made eyes at her. Big, brown, tempting eyes. Sweeter than anything. Tilted his head and sucked a finger into his mouth, nice and slow, hallowing his cheeks around it as he licked her come off. “Do you?”

Mariah laughed. “You think that’s gonna make me weak?” she asked. It did make her reconsider, but tossing him out unsatisfied was even more fun later. “Baby, I can get that at home any night.” She waved a hand at him. “Out.”

He sighed and finished licking her come from his fingers before he showed himself out.

Mariah cleaned up in her private bathroom and set to work on the books, happiness singing through her. She was going to make him pay for that later.

-end-


End file.
